Major Works

• Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil [1651]

  - Hackett, 1994 (Edwin Curley, ed.)
  The Leviathan is Hobbes’s masterwork, published in 1651. It contains four parts: “Of Man,” “Of Commonwealth,” “Of a Christian Commonwealth,” and “Of the Kingdom of Darkness.” “Of Man” connects… More

• The Elements of Philosophy: De Cive

  - Hackett, 1991 (Bernard Gert, ed. -- contains De Cive and selections of De Homine)
  The Elements of Philosophy is composed of three parts, not published in their intended order. De Cive, published in 1642, was Hobbes’s first definitive articulation of his political philosophy. It includes Hobbes’s account of the state of nature and the… More

Commentary

• The Political Philosophy of Hobbes [1936] by Leo Strauss

  - Leo Strauss (Elsa M. Sinclair, trans., University of Chicago Press, 1996)
  In this classic analysis, Leo Strauss pinpoints what is original and innovative in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He argues that Hobbes’s ideas arose not from tradition or science but from his own deep knowledge and experience of human… More

• “On the Basis of Hobbes’ Political Philosophy” [1959]

  - Leo Strauss, in What is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies (University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 170-196
  Excerpt: In a word, by trying to give reasons for unqualified submission to authority, Hobbes makes impossible unqualified submission to authority; by appealing from authority to reason, as Socrates did, he is forced to repeat what he regarded as Socrates’s… More

• Hobbes on Civil Association [1975]

  - Michael Oakeshott (Liberty Fund, 2000)
  This volume consists of Michael Oakeshott’s four principal essays on Hobbes and on the nature of civil association as civil association pertains to ordered liberty. The essays are “Introduction to Leviathan” (1946); “The Moral Life in the Writings of… More